Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Stop messing with genetics: part 5

This movie’s title is a bit long and ridiculous (under what circumstances is the dinosaur ‘kingdom’ fallen? It’s ludicrous) so I will delightfully refer to this as “Dinosaurs 5” because it is amusing.

Anyway, the newest Dinosaurs film was fairly entertaining. That said, this movie hit many of the same beats as its predecessor; dinosaurs are utterly out of control and eating people, and it’s up to the ‘Handsome Man’ to save the day. He also needs to bring his ‘Love Interest’ with him. I use these terms here because these characters are distressingly shallow and undeveloped. Truly, every character seems to exist almost exclusively for the events in the film; their jobs and their interests are directly related to dinosaurs, and everything they discuss is either about dinosaurs or the bland, stereotypical romance with the stars. So, the writing is terrible. I think the actors try to work with it…well, not all of them. A few people, particularly a tech-savvy side character, were just grating and bothersome throughout.

The story itself is preposterous and unintelligible, which is not surprising, per se, but it is much worse than any of the previous movies in the series. I would say Jurassic Park 3 was a more terrible movie, but not in regard to its story. I am compelled to spoil the ludicrous nature of this film’s main events, yet I will refrain. Simply understand that the twists are laughably obvious, the character motivations are nigh nonexistent, and most of the ideas are too far from sensibility to be considered representative of sanity. Yet, the movie treats itself in such high regard that I would not entertain any arguments of purposeful inanity. There are vacuous jokes in the film, occasionally breaking the fourth wall, but they hardly fit the tone for the duration.

As expected, the special effects are wonderful, albeit in service of a monotonous, meandering mess of a movie. Still, the dinosaurs everybody came to see look great, and the visual design is generally pleasing. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it works when it needs to.

The music is just fine, and that is a shame; the series is known for its impeccable sound, or it had been in the past. The score to the original Jurassic Park is still memorable, and I can hardly say the same here. I never found it jarring or outrageous, but I certainly couldn’t consider it notable.

I must give credit to the camerawork in a couple of notable scenes; there is a long perspective shot for a particular dinosaur, in addition to a great deal often being shown in the background during action scenes. This aspect is pretty good, better than most summer blockbusters certainly. That said, all of the story-focused scenes are terribly simplistic and, frankly, somewhat boring in comparison. So this is certainly uneven in that regard.

All things considered, Dinosaurs 5 is Objectionable, almost reaching Satisfactory. Very little about this movie is atrocious or abysmal, yet it isn’t very well put-together nonetheless. It is far from unwatchable, but it just rehashes so much from the earlier movies, and never seems compelling. I understand why this is popular, but I also know it could be much better. Chris Pratt should probably stop doing these; he’s better than this film deserves.

David Surace is a connoisseur of film and a collector of facts. Though only 23, he is regarded by his peers as the doyen of cinema knowledge, especially concerning its impact on culture from the point of an “old-soul” millennial. In his life and in his reviews, he always attempts to imbue flawless grammar and unapologetically blunt honesty (and occasional swearing).